Remote cabin hit by vandals

Once again the log cabin used by a local long rifle gun club has been vandalized, leaving behind a mess, broken windows and missing items. The Crook County Sheriff's office is investigating

. Vandals broke into the rustic log cabin used by members of the Grizzly Mountain Long Rifle club last week and destroyed as much as they stole. Jim Malloy, a member in long-standing, said it appeared to be something kids would do. "Breaking lamps, smashing and stealing, it looks like kid stuff. They took things they thought they could use and dumped the rest." This was not the first time the cabin, which is a mile or more off Highway 126, west of the airport, has been hit by vandals. Last summer, someone cut the lock off the door and, Mallory said, "took everything that wasn't nailed down." Lost in that raid were the stopwatches used in club competition, a CO2 discharger, used to discharge muzzleloaders without firing them and a lot of other little items. In that incident, Mallory said the vandals didn't destroy things, except the trophy deer antlers that had been attached to a plaque and hung over the door. In the latest case, the vandals apparently broke in by way of a window and then ripped the door hardware from the doorframe in order to open a side door. From the mess left behind, they emptied everything out onto the floor and took anything that looked to have a value. Once again, the stopwatch that replaced the first one was taken, numerous muzzle loading supplies, a large first aid kit and the deer antlers from over the door. "The new ones," Mallory said. "It looked like they just twisted them off the mounting bolts." Crook County Sheriff's deputies are investigating the latest vandalism. They were called and responded, taking photos and taking lists of the missing items. The vandalized cabin and how it came to be hidden out of sight in the junipers west of Prineville is interesting. According to Malloy, it was used as a bunkhouse on a ranch in the Paulina area. In the mid 1970s, when then-County Commissioner Ted Comini heard it was to be torn down, he stepped in. The squared log cabin was carefully dismantled, with each log being numbered. The material, leaving only the massive stone fireplace behind, was then transported to a site on Millican road, about where one of Les Schwab Tire Center giant warehouses is now. Reassembled, the cabin was donated to the black powder long rifle club. About ten years later, when the county found a need for that land, another place was found and once again the cabin was dismantled and moved. This time, when it was reassembled, it was placed on property that the club leases from the county. Currently the strong walls of hand-shaped squared logs, completed with a heavy wood warming stove, sits more than a mile from pavement, behind fences and two locked gates. Being out of sight and hidden from view isn't enough, apparently, to stop someone, or a group of someones, from bringing destruction to the near-historic structure.